It’s been another big week for noun names. They were all over Hollywood gossip blogs, and appeared in plenty of workaday birth announcements, too.

There’s no doubt that this is a rich category. Flower names make us consider trees – meet my daughter, Lily, and my son, Cedar. Weather and birds feel like inexhaustible sources of inspiration. There are the old school, Puritan-era virtue names, but also more recent innovations, rich with meaning.

Sometimes the influence is more subtle. Surname Brooks is preppier than River, but both bring to mind the great outdoors. Clementine and Olive have been used for so long we consider them names, but they’re both on the upswing today, lifted by the trend.